Divorce, false allegations of abuse, mental illness and a great son. It's a life-changing mix. If it's your first time, do yourself a favor and at least read the first few archives. It'll make a lot more sense.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Life is Pretty Good

I don’t know what to write about. I’ve been trying to keep everything together. It’s catching up financially that’s the most difficult. Other than the Ex, most other things are going well.

Being unemployed was extremely difficult financially. I paid my rent, my support payments and kept myself fed, but not much more. I hope that I can catch up before things get too serious.

While my finances and my Ex are difficult, most everything else seems to be coming together. My job is going very well. I was worried for a little while because my manager seemed to get kind of withdrawn, but the other manager I work with was always very positive. I didn’t know if he was unhappy with me (for reasons unknown) or if it was something else. Turns out it was something else. He stopped by my desk last week and told me he wanted to talk to me. He told me that the review that had been done on me several weeks ago shouldn’t have been done, but that it wasn’t a big deal. The reason he was telling me this was that he had decided that he wasn’t going to do the next part of the review because I hadn’t been there long enough to meet the requirements. He went on to say that he couldn’t guarantee I would get much, but that he was going to put me in for a raise AND a bonus. I was very surprised – I really was not expecting to get either.

Things could not be going better with Curly. I think part of the reason we get along so well is that we treat each other very well, but don’t take advantage of it. Another thing I like is that she appreciates how I treat her (and vice versa). I sometimes find myself not knowing how to react, mainly because I went so long living with somebody who reacted with paranoia to nearly anything. I have to say it’s pretty nice to be in a situation where I have to learn how to deal with kindness.

I had an exciting day Friday. I was doing some experimentation at work with one of my products so I could write up a report. My manager, when he heard about it, asked me to document the results so we could give them to all the engineers, because it would put everybody on the same page. I was a good way through what I was doing by the end of the day. Then, literally about 10 minutes before I was to go home, I found something. Something that was previously unknown, and is the kind of thing that gets management’s attention quickly. I couldn’t believe I’d found it, so I spent an hour testing it, then decided to pick back up on Monday morning. Once I explain what I’ve found to my manager I have a feeling I’m going to be told to drop everything and finish testing it.

My son is growing so fast. On our last overnight, I asked him if he wanted to get a “spaceship and robot” movie. He was pretty enthusiastic about it. I went and got The Empire Strikes Back, because he’d seen some it one afternoon. I knew then that I’d have to get it and watch it with him because he was literally mesmerized by it. We watched it several times, but there were a few scenes he kept making me play over and over. By the end of it, several new words had entered his vocabulary, Artoo and lightsaber being two of them. It was great fun.

Now it’s getting towards bedtime – especially since I have to leave at 7 tomorrow morning to go pick him up. I’m thinking of bringing my laptop so I can rent another Star Wars movie. He’ll love being able to sit and watch it with me, then tell me what he thinks is going on. That can be quite funny.

I need to force time to write more – I always feel better after I finish a post. May the force be with you.